Jim Cast
Headquarters, Washington, DC August 27, 1999
(Phone: 202/358-1779)
Dom Amatore
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
(Phone: 256/544-0031)
RELEASE: 99-100
NASA READIES ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDY ON X-34
TESTING IN NEW MEXICO, CALIFORNIA AND FLORIDA
NASA is finalizing plans to prepare an Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) for powered test flights of its X-34 rocket plane,
scheduled to begin next year.
In order to carry out X-34 powered flights outside the
boundaries of existing flight ranges, an Environmental Impact
Statement is required. An EIS may also constitute a step toward
establishing the feasibility and desirability, from an
environmental perspective, of powered flights involving other,
future NASA experimental vehicles. The X-34 EIS process plan
includes California, New Mexico and Florida as reasonable
alternative sites to carry out X-34 powered flights or flight
testing of other future NASA experimental vehicles at some time in
the future.
Other states involved in the EIS process are Nevada and Utah,
which the X-34 would fly over during California-based test
flights. Those states also are being evaluated as contingency
landing sites. North and South Carolina are being evaluated for
contingency landings for Florida based flights. The final test
plan will not be approved until after the final EIS is issued.
The first step will be a Notice of Intent published by the
end of 1999 in the Federal Register. It will provide the public
with a summary of all potential flight paths for the experimental
craft for operations based in those three states. After the
notice is published, public meetings will be held in each area
under consideration.
"We want public involvement," said Dr. Rebecca McCaleb,
manager of the Environmental Engineering Department at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL. "We are very
interested in ensuring that we evaluate any issues that may exist
specific to the sites under consideration."
Marshall manages the X-34 project for NASA. The unpiloted,
reusable X-34 is designed to demonstrate technologies and
operations necessary to cut the cost of putting payloads into
orbit from $10,000 per pound to $1,000 per pound.
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